


roof's edge

by fishycorvid



Category: Brooklyn Nine-Nine (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Canon Divergence, F/M, Fluff, Getting Together, Post "The Bet", Wooing, set during season 1, this is just...... first season fluff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-10
Updated: 2018-06-10
Packaged: 2019-05-20 18:08:23
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,724
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14899422
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fishycorvid/pseuds/fishycorvid
Summary: “Just trust me on this, Santiago,” he implores her, grinning, and normally she’d tell him to buzz off, it’s been a long day and really she just wants to go back to her room and sleep for a year, but there’s an earnest look in his bright brown eyes that almost seems gentle. It conflicts enough with the cocky bastard of a coworker Amy’s known for the last four years that she’s curious, so she sighs loudly.“What do you want, Peralta?” she snaps, but Jake doesn’t seem deterred in the slightest, instead extending a hand towards her and waggling his fingers with a bright smile. She stares at his hands, then looks back at him with a cocked eyebrow. He just shakes his head and laughs.





	roof's edge

**Author's Note:**

> hey y'all!! this is messy fuckin fluff but i hope you enjoy anyway <3

“Just trust me on this, Santiago,” he implores her, grinning, and normally she’d tell him to buzz off, it’s been a long day and really she just wants to go back to her room and sleep for a year, but there’s an earnest look in his bright brown eyes that almost seems gentle. It conflicts enough with the cocky bastard of a coworker Amy’s known for the last four years that she’s curious, so she sighs loudly.

“What do you want, Peralta?” she snaps, but Jake doesn’t seem deterred in the slightest, instead extending a hand towards her and waggling his fingers with a bright smile. She stares at his hands, then looks back at him with a cocked eyebrow. He just shakes his head and laughs.

“Come with me and you’ll see.” He waves her towards her own door, knowing smile remaining, as if he’s not standing in her apartment thirteen minutes past midnight entirely unannounced. It’s absurd is what it is, her partner showing up on her doorstep after last night’s messy aftermath of their bet. Subconsciously, she shudders at the memory of the scratchy dress she’d had to wear for a few hours, and the plastic ring digging into her finger, but smiles at the same time; it’s not a wholly bad memory.

Finally, Amy concedes with a loud sigh, and Jake lets out a shout of victory that is painfully loud in her tiny, cramped apartment.

She winces. “Peralta, my neighbors will kill me if you don’t shut the hell up.”

He rolls his eyes and grabs her hand, twining his fingers around hers and the look on his face is triumphant when she doesn’t pull away. “Right, right, I forgot you just moved in.”

“It wouldn’t be any different if I’d been here for years.”

“Maybe so, but you wouldn’t still be trying to make them love you. You’d’ve figured out that this is New York, and there’s no way in hell your neighbors actually appreciate you.” By the time Jake gets to the end of the second sentence, she’s being dragged up the stairs.

 _“Jake,”_ Amy snaps, but there’s no bite to it, she’s actually smiling, for reasons she doesn’t fully understand. It occurs to her that she’s wearing a sweatshirt and shorts, and, for a moment, she worries about her neighbors seeing her looking like such a mess, and even considers voicing it, before remembering that Jake would just laugh at her again.

He stops in his tracks at one of the landings, wheezing exaggeratedly, hands on his knees. “Sooooo,” he pants up at her. “You’re probably wondering where I’m taking you.”

“Not really, no,” and she’s surprised to find that it’s true; it really doesn't matter because this is just where she is and who she's with. All she can see is that Jake’s hair is sticking up messily, and he’s still wearing his work clothes, like maybe he came here directly from the precinct. He looks scruffy in a way that only he could pull off, and she's also surprised to find that she's blushing, just a little.

“Well, I’m telling you anyway,” he says, straightening up. “Did you know you have roof access in here?”

“Yes, of course I do. I looked over the apartment plans before moving here, as a responsible intellectual.” Jake stares at her until she crumbles. “Okay, okay, fine, I didn’t know.”

“Amy Santi _ago,”_ he grins at her, eyes wide and surprised and dancing with mirth in a way that makes her stomach flip over. “I expected so much more from you.”

His hand is still wrapped tightly around hers, fingers laced together.

“Oh screw you, Peralta,” Amy says, smirking. It feels almost rehearsed; their banter is so easy and natural that she hardly even has to think about it anymore, and it feels bright in a way she can’t really put words to, like sparks jump between their words, so much more than their denotative meanings. The whole thing makes her feel like something inside her has shifted into place in a way it never did before.

“That’s the best you could come up with?” Jake asks rhetorically, and then drags her up three more flights of stairs, and she doesn’t know why, but they’re both laughing by the time they get to the top floor, both of them leaning against each other on the railing. “C’mon,” he tells her through fits of laughter, loud and free and uninhibited, “let’s go,” and then they’re scrambling through a door and the city rolls out, above, below, and around them.

Amy pauses when she gets to the edge of the roof, leaning out over the street but looking behind her. It’s cold; the wind sweeps hard over the building at this height, and it raises the hairs on her exposed skin. Autumn. Too late in the year to be up on a roof at night. Jake is lingering a few steps back with a smile on his face that she doesn’t recognize, and she turns, fingers still lingering on the little wall between her and open air.

“Hey,” Amy offers, unsure of what else to say, because a few minutes ago, Jake Peralta was standing in her living room, looking awkward and a little nervous, hair curling by his ears and sticking up on his neck, eyes wide and shining softly, a tiny smile lingering on his lips, and now here he is on her roof, lights from buildings miles away casting odd shadows across his face, but she can still see the smile, the glow sparking off his eyes.

He edges closer, and his hands jump out of their pockets and settle on the wall, inches away from her fingers. “Hey,” he returns; she can feel the warm weight of his shoulder against hers, and there’s something clenching and unclenching in her chest.

Jake stares out at the city, eyes unwavering. She can see the lines forming underneath.

“Why are we here?”

He looks over at her and snorts. “What, you mean on earth? Because that’s a long, long answer, Amy, and it would all be bullshit if I tried to tell you, because I don’t know.” A clear deflection.

And it’s a weak retort, even by his standards, but the only thing she can focus on is the fact he called her by her real name, not her surname or some dumb nickname he’d made up to tease her. She tilts her head, and he sighs. His fingers twitch a little on the stone wall towards hers.

“We’re… well. I’m here because I want to be.”

Amy glances over at him, and his forefinger brushes against her pinky. She almost jumps at the touch.

“I know you had a rough day. A rough day in a string of rough days.” He won’t meet her eyes as he talks, but his fingers are inching closer and closer. “A few days ago, you mentioned that you liked being in high places.” A smile. “You were never scared of heights. And…” Jake trails off. “I know you love this city.” He’s about to backtrack now, try to talk himself out of this genuine, honest corner, she can sense it. “So, yeah, the roof.” His hand stills, leans away from hers, and Amy can feel the cold spot where it used to be. There’s affection lingering between them, something that they both feel, and it somehow feels as necessary as air, as natural as the noise of the city.

Finally, he meets her eyes. “Are you going to ask me why I’m here, an absolute mess who was about to go to bed before I had to buzz you up after midnight and is currently way underdressed for the weather?” she prompts, and another gust of wind hits at that moment, as if to illustrate her point.

Jake’s lips curl up a little at the ends, and he looks away, back out at the rushing cars. “Okay, Amy Santiago. Why are you, an absolute mess who was about to go to bed before you had to buzz me up after midnight and is currently way underdressed for the middle of the night in October on the roof of an apartment complex?”

The distance between their hands feels like a chasm. Insurmountable.

And yet: she lets her fingers extend out to touch his knuckles. Jake starts, head jerking to look at her, eyes wide and curious.

“I’m here because I want to be, too,” she tells him, and the tiny smile hiding in his lips turns into a full-on grin, eyes crinkling up at the corners, teeth flashing in the city lights.

The light, gentle touch of Amy’s fingers against Jake’s is almost intoxicating, and their hands slide together, his fingers flipping to touch the inside of her wrist, not quite holding on, but tracing her veins. They are feet apart, but their hands are wound together, like a promise, like a reminder. They watch each other’s microexpressions as they’ve always done, from across desks, across crowded rooms, across crime scenes, across the distances of tired minds and bodies miles apart; the slight movement of Amy’s lips, the almost unnoticeable widening of Jake’s eyes, the tiny tilt of Amy’s head, the minute lean forward of the both of them.

When his lips press to hers, sweet and warm against the freezing cold of the city at night, she curls herself against him. His hand lifts to her jaw, cupping it gently, and she reaches her other hand to brush through his hair, curling around the strands at the back of his scalp. He doesn’t try anything, just stays there, solid and hot and pulling her against him, and Amy pulls away only when she’s just breathless and incredulous enough to concede as much as an inch of space between them.

Their hands stay intertwined together at their sides. Jake leaves his other hand on her face. Amy lets hers rest on the back of his neck.

There is wonderment in his eyes, and an affection he’s never seen before in hers.

There is something strange and new that was both entirely unexpected and fully predictable.

For once, Amy Santiago is at peace with the idea of a mystery she might never truly understand.

For once, Jake Peralta has hands that do not fidget.

**Author's Note:**

> thanks for reading!! feel free to drop a kudos or comment if you enjoyed it, and thank you again for reading!


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